The preseason gym hummed with the whir of overworked AC, but the air between Lin Mo and Wembanyama felt like it was baking. Wembanyama stood at the free-throw line, his 7'4" frame casting a long shadow over the court, each shot arcing with mechanical precision—10 in a row, all kissing the back of the net. When he missed the 11th, he froze, staring at the rim as if it had personally offended him.
"Left index finger," Lin Mo said, tossing a ball to a rookie. "You're flicking it 2 degrees too hard. Muscle memory from your youth team, where the rims were tighter."
Wembanyama's jaw tightened. He'd spent hours in France drilling that flick, a coach's voice echoing: "Perfection is repetition, not feeling." He turned, his sneakers squeaking sharply on the floor. "And you? Your left shoulder dips before every three. A child could block it."
The first 5v5 scrimmage turned into a duel. Wembanyama ran pick-and-rolls with the precision of a metronome, hitting cutters exactly 0.7 seconds after they cleared the screen—the optimal window, per his notes. Lin Mo, meanwhile, played like he was making it up: a no-look pass when a rookie scratched his nose (nervous, needs a confidence boost), a sudden drive when the center yawned (tired, slow to rotate).
"Chaos isn't strategy," Wembanyama snapped after Lin Mo's wild pass led to a layup. He held up a notebook, pages filled with stats: Lin Mo: 62% of passes come after opponent blinks. "This is."
Lin Mo laughed, wiping sweat from his brow. "Old Man Joe's rim? Blinked every time it rained. You think he kept a notebook?" He nodded at Wembanyama's wristband, still plain black but now frayed at the edges. "That thing's your cage. You rub it like you're trying to unlock it, but you're the one holding the key."
That night, Wembanyama lay in his dorm, staring at the ceiling. He replayed Lin Mo's words, then pulled up footage of Old Man Joe's court—kids laughing, the rim wobbling, no playbooks in sight. He grabbed his wristband, twisting it until it hurt.